That Our Memes Were Still There

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Like unexploded angry incense from the 4th, these memes had to be used up on the fifth.

There might be an extraordinary meme post on Monday, for the other stuff.

In the meantime, while you’re here…. I stayed up blowing up stuff and singing the Star Spangled Banner (if you heard me, you know exactly who and where I was. Dear Lord do I sing badly. Even the DIL’s beautiful voice couldn’t cover it up. Badly but with much feeling, note.) till very late, and woke up two hours ago.

Which time other than the necessities like feeding the cats has been spent here, gathering the memes and uploading them a process that WP makes a pain.

This is my “light” post. I try to do it at night on Friday while husband watches TV, but sometimes — blowing up stuff — this fails, and then I spend the morning on Saturday looking for/organizing/uploading memes.

Because Saturday is also our errands day, I’ve uploaded memes as a passenger in a car. Sitting outside in the car while husband goes see if the store as xyz. In between stores. After shopping/putting away. While my family is having breakfast. Etc. etc. etc.

But the memes get done anyway, and I know they make a lot of people happy. Which is why I do them.

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93 thoughts on “That Our Memes Were Still There”

    1. Was just coming to say, it sounded like a war zone in my neighborhood. Even better, we had a thunderstorm roll through and briefly drench everything, and some of my neighbors seemed to take that as encouragement. I don’t think anyone got much sleep until after 1:00. Every time it seemed to quiet down, the fireworks started up somewhere else.

      I have a feeling it’ll be more of the same tonight; we’ve had fireworks going off for a good week already.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. Ever since anything spicier than sparklers became legal in Georgia, it’s been the siege of stalingrad every year.

      Normally I can hear the fireworks at the nearby state park every night all summer. Not on July 4th. The continuous mortal and small arms fire in my subdivision drowns it out.

      Liked by 1 person

    3. It was awesome for everyone but the poor border collie here. He will never appreciate fireworks regardless of the reason for them.

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      1. Same for the dog and 2 of the 5 cats. Dog takes to the bathrooms (no windows). Cats take to wherever. Cats recover faster. Poor Pepper not until middle of the morning. Then she won’t settle down.

        Some neighbors took to the grade school parking lot. Interestingly enough technically not legal, even for the legal fireworks. All school properties in the urban growth boundary are within the city, even if the surrounding home properties are not. They did put on quite a show (can see school from house).

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        1. Our son’s dog refused his evening walk. There wasn’t even much noise at that point. It was spooky.

          And it was surprisingly quiet, especially considering the seven fireworks tents I counted.

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        2. Our son’s dog refused his evening walk. There wasn’t even much noise at that point. It was spooky.

          And it was surprisingly quiet, especially considering the seven fireworks tents I counted.

          Liked by 1 person

  4. God Bless America!!!! 🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆

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  5. USA vs England by the numbers was just plain wrong.

    We both have a 4th of July; but unlike England, we have an Independence Day.

    England’s super bowl is what Charles puts his dog’s food in.

    England does have a Waffle House, it’s called Parliament (similar to Congress.)

    And we still have Queens. It’s to the east of Brooklyn.

    Liked by 2 people

  6. [Takes a deep breath…]

    And thus be it ever, when free men shall stand/Between their loved homes and wars desolation/Blessed with victory and peace, let this heav’n rescued land/Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation/Then conquer we must/When our cause it is just/Let this be our motto/”In God is our trust”/And the Star Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave/O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

    Liked by 2 people

    1. correction: In some states you are not allowed to buy, own or use fireworks. Whether you can or not depends on your middle fingers.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. That’s why some folks from the People’s Republic of Massachusetts come to NH to get their fireworks fix. You’d think the money grubber commissars in Boston would allow fireworks in the state so they could scoop off even more revenue, but that’s too much like supporting firearms, and they are dyed in the wool 2nd Amendment haters.

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    3. Not only are all fireworks illegaller here in the Silicon Valley Wealth Centralization District of Gavin’s Bear Flag People’s Republic, we had a convenient demonstration bigbaddaboom when a fireworks warehouse over in the Central Valley went kaboom on live teevee:

      That said, the celebratory noise was widespread and continuous as it got dark and for several hours thereafter even here.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. The China Show’s hosts pointed out that, in America, it’s no big deal to report sad news or disasters, and therefore the fireworks warehouse explosion was freely reported in the news, as was the tragic Texas flash flood.

        And because people know, and are unafraid to respond helpfully, America’s messes tend to get cleaned up and fixed.

        Whereas China’s CCP is trying hard to hide all the floods, fires, and factory explosions that they have had this year, while not much is done about them.

        So yup, even bad news proves the goodness of America.

        Liked by 1 person

      1. Okay, maybe the Mediterranean really is 2000 miles long. (I blame my geography teachers, or maybe my world history teachers.)

        In which case it would have been really hilarious if that ocean still ran through the middle of the US, so that we could have our own Mediterranean Sea.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. Yes, but Europe gets the Gulf Stream. They can raise palm trees in England at a latitude where Hudson Bay has major issues with polar bears.

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  10. “The Second Amendment doesn’t apply to modern weapons!”

    Get back to me on that after I see you become a knife-rights activist.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. As I pointed out some years ago on Miguel Gonzales’s blog, the “reasoning” that the Bill of Rights only covers 1790 things would also mean:

      1. Freedom of speech doesn’t apply to blog posts, because computers
        didn’t exist in 1790. Nor does it apply to newspapers, because web
        presses and phototypesetters did not exist in 1790. Only paper
        documents printed from hand-set type on hand-operated presses would be
        protected.
      2. The requirement for a search warrant doesn’t apply to wiretaps on
        your phone, because phones did not exist in 1790.
      3. Freedom of religion doesn’t apply to Mormons, or Christian
        Scientists, or Scientologists, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, or Southern
        Baptists, or Seventh Day Adventists, or Reform Jews, because none of
        those religions existed in 1790.

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    2. Actually, there’s a serious problem with ALL the states not understanding that the 2nd Amendment applies to all kinds of arms, not just firearms. Guns just happen to be the most effective and easily used by the most people. But according to the Constitution, if I want to carry a sword to defend myself against criminals and totalitarian government (I know, that’s redundant), then I have the right to do so.

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      1. The “right to bear arms” doesn’t say firearms, but arms: any weapon a man can carry, like knives, swords, lances, hatchets, as well as firearms, ie, guns.

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        1. At the time, “arms” meant “anything a soldier might carry.”

          That is, non-crew-served weapons.

          (Although obviously that didn’t mean canons were automatically banned, most of those used were privately owned.)

          ….

          This is actually really effective when someone is trying to do the “oh so the second amendment means muskets” shtick, where they usually expect you to at most respond with the point that they did have rifles, and other gun geekery.

          They are not prepared for “word meant soldier weapons.”

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          1. I seem to recall some small, usually swivel-mounted brass or bronze cannons, firing a one to maybe one-and-a-half-inch ball, that can be carried by one person. I suppose you could put them on a collapsable tripod mount that could be carried by a second person. It would have to be fairly beefy to provide a secure platform for firing. And darned if I didn’t find a Wiki reference for them too. Swivel gun – Wikipedia “It had a high rate of fire, as several chambers could be prepared in advance and quickly fired in succession and was especially effective in anti-personnel roles.” Oooo. So much for the non-existence of repeating firearms. And yes, the article referred to a swivel gun as a “firearm.”

            Additionally, they were first developed in 1364, AND many of them were primitive, but rather elegant actually, breech loaders.

            “Due to their relatively small size, swivel guns were highly portable and could be moved around the deck of a ship quite easily “

            I think an important point missed is that their small size not only made them easily portable, but also meant that they were not out of the affordability range of the middle class if someone wanted one.

            Liked by 1 person

    3. Mongols used disease warfare, therefore I have a right to own small pox, and prepare it as a weapon, for military purposes. (Okay, I do not think I have seen anyone arguing for or against this case before.)

      I would be willing to compromise on owning relatively simple, affordable militarily useful weapons that can be used in discriminate ways.

      Yes on rifles, pistols and machine guns.

      SSMs, anti-ship missiles, nukes, germs, schedule one substances, etc., I am willing to not press for.

      Anyway, perhaps if I am not pushing for mortars, I am properly classified as unreliable on the second amendment.

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      1. My usual response is to recommend they seek to amend the COTUS to exclude those heavier weapons… and predict that they won’t.

        Oddly they don’t jump to it, which I think confirms my suspicions. They aren’t really worried about, say, privately owned artillery (or NUKES!1!!) or whatever. They’re trying to get people to agree to an infringement so they can use that to “justify” restricting much lighter weapons. Like handguns, so-called “assault weapons” and so on.

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        1. It’s the camels nose effect, where once any limitations on an enumerated right are allowed, the line can move anywhere.

          Much like the conversation attributed to Lord Beaverbrook, the transaction is already agreed to, and the rest is just haggling about the price.

          Liked by 1 person

        2. My usual response is that if they want an exclusion that also applies to both plainclothes government agents and uniformed law enforcement, with zero tolerance for any exceptions or exemptions, then we can talk. Otherwise, sod off, police-state lover.

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      2. I’ve always considered man-portable weapons to be arms. i.e. a single person can carry it and operate it. Ballista, trebuchet, tanks, aircraft, ramming ships, don’t fit that category, and instead, more or less fit the definition of engines of war. There are particular cases such as backpack nukes, and mines, that operate independent of a user trigger, or can’t safely be thrown for use without suiciding, whereas a hand grenade or Molotov cocktail would qualify as an arm. Neither would most booby traps. However, that is my interpretation, and other knowledgeable military members may disagree.

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        1. Sorry, Sir; at the time of the Revolution privately owned artillery and warships (Letters of Marque and Reprisal) were well known to the Founders. If they had intended such items to be out of bounds, I suspect that they would have made it more explicit. Per Tench Coxe, ” . . . every terrible implement of the soldier are the birthright of an American.”

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          1. Meaning that we do have the right to pursue Neighborhood Nuclear Superiority! :-D

            A character in one of my stories not only has weapons that can’t be taken from her, but: “I have the power to end worlds, and you want to strip-search me for a mere gun?”

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          2. Not so sure that would qualify as ‘private’ ownership so much as business capital, security, expense. Privately owned ships might have carried one to several cannon (and did), and basically private mercenary companies might have had several cannon too. Love to have a time machine to go back and actually talk with those people about those things. I suspect the nervous nellies of today would be flabbergasted by the responses.

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  12. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1448902419620922

    Poem: (Quoted from FB above Rift TV)

    “You burn the flag but ask for rights.
    You hate this land but sleep safe at night.
    You scream stolen land like history is clean.
    But every nation is someone else’s dream.
    You say no one is illegal but you lock your own doors.
    You hate immigration laws till chaos hits your floor.
    You quote the pledge just the parts you like.
    But you forget one nation.
    But you just want to fight.
    You call it freedom to light up the street.
    But freedom has rules and freedom ain’t cheap.
    The flag you torch covers coffins not just poles.
    It flew for the brave who never came home.
    Its not just a cloth it’s a battle thread
    worn by the living laid on the dead.
    So if you hate it here fine that’s your call
    but don’t burn the symbol and still want it all.
    Change takes work not fire, not fame, not tantrums,
    and masks, with no real shame.    “
    “Author: unkown”

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  13. Regarding the time machine meme, given it’s Ben Franklin he probably left at least half a dozen proto-Americans in the oven (so to speak) before going back to his time.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. There was actually a story in Dr Strange comics where Dr Strange and his female disciple later wife Clea were sent back to ~1770 for some reason and had to consult with Franklin, whose wizardry was apparently more than scientific.

        Franklin promptly seduced Clea under Dr Strange’s nose. Apparently the writer had done his research.

        Liked by 2 people

  14. I always laugh at the star-spangled dingdongs meme. Clowning on Britain never gets old.

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    1. I don’t think the rest of the world realizes that we still think of ourselves as scrappy underdogs.

      This is probably why Canada doesn’t think we’re funny when we clown on our mutual historical unpleasantnesses.

      Liked by 1 person

  15. We had small-town-in-Flyover municipal fireworks on Thurs night. Then last night, there were 3 private sessions visible/audible from my house. One was only audible. The others went somewhere and got SERIOUS munitions, better than I’ve ever seen in this state. I CAN’T WAIT FOR NEXT YEAR!!!!

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  16. There are two nights of official fun – last night was the ball park and places south and north of us. And the neighbors. Tonight is in-town, and the ball park, and probably some neighbors. The fireworks started at 2115 (dark) and were still going strong when I fell asleep around 2215.

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  17. I watched part of the Capitol Fourth from DC last night. It had a different vibe from the past few years, more patriotic and less PC.

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  19. My neighbors usually have a street celebration. Well, this year, the usual suspects were out of state, so I instead took the kids and we biked down to the city fireworks. (Biked because you do NOT want to take a car anywhere near there on the 4th. You will sit in traffic forever.)

    They’ve never seen a professional show before. And we also got a 12 minute drone show to start. (Complete with one that was hilariously out of place.) The friends we met up with were in the best spot, dead center, and the kids enjoyed it. The older two were making plans to have a better time next year while the youngest was lamenting the lack of things to do before the show started. (The friends were all out of his age range, but he did get to play with light sabers a bit.) I think he enjoyed it too, though.

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    1. I went to the town fireworks down at the big park, and found out that the view from the playground equipment really is high quality. I just sat nearby, because I didn’t want to interfere with the kids who were playing, but I still got a good view of everything.

      The disadvantage was that it was harder to hear the music to which the fireworks were choreographed. But I still heard some of it.

      Liked by 1 person

  20. Pingback: Instapundit » Blog Archive » I HAD SOME LEFTOVER FOURTH OF JULY MEMES:  That Our Memes Were Still There. So I used them: like

  22. A problem with the meme with the line – Oh! Lets give them guns.

    The colonists as Englishmen already had the right to keep and bear firearms for the purposes of self-defense, hunting and to oppose tyranny by the crown.

    The Second Amendment didn’t grant a right, it was an assurance that an existing right would continue under the new government.

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    2. Um… only if you were Anglican. Catholics and non-Anglican Protestants could not keep and bear firearms at the time of the Revolution. (Although in the Colonies, they mostly did.)

      I think Catholics were still forbidden to own horses worth more than five pounds, and were still paying extra fines/taxes, which were supposed to pay for firearms for Anglicans and UK soldiers, which the Catholics were forbidden to bear.

      There was a bunch of stuff, which varied by colony, and a bunch of other stuff that still applied to everybody.

      Now… mind you… the Puritans of Massachusetts funded a Cromwell-era army/cavalry that temporarily took over control of Maryland, and there was a Colonial cavalier/Catholic army/cavalry force that tried to stop them. So obviously gun control and horse control were a little more contemporary of usefulness to whomever ended up as a Power That Be.

      I still am amazed at how much of this stuff happened, and how little we heard about it in American history class.

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      1. Consider Charles Carroll.

        There was a dispute in a newspaper. A Loyalist wrote a dialogue between First Citizen and Second Citizen, where the Second Citizen got the best of it. He got a counter claiming to be the First Citizen and that the dialogue misrepresented what they had said. The first one countered that he wasn’t a First Citizen because he was a Catholic and didn’t have the vote.

        Only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence.

        Saw every state grant Catholics the vote and most the right to hold office.

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  23. Anyway… even though there had been local civil wars within living memory, the Founding Fathers largely didn’t see a problem with everybody bearing arms. Even those naughty Catholics.

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  24. Also, one of the Minutemen at Lexington was a slave, and he clearly had his own gun. And his “master” let him go off to war, and he was apparently emancipated by the time he came back as a veteran and settled down.

    Prince Estabrook was wounded in the left shoulder at the Battle of Lexington. He also guarded Continental Army HQ in Cambridge, MA; was stationed at Fort Ticonderoga uneventfully; guarded British POWs back in Cambridge, MA; built forts in NY; and in some manner became a freeman before he came back home in 1783.

    He is buried in Ashby, MA; and there’s a monument to him in Lexington.

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  25. Anyway… the Quebec Act of 1774, one of the “Intolerable Acts,” had a bunch of stuff in it. One thing was the UK government allowing UK settlement of part of the “Indian Reserve,” which originally (1763) was everything past the Appalachians, but now was all the way to the Ohio River and then the Appalachians. (The result of Lord Dunsmore’s War.) Probably the Thirteen Colonies wouldn’t have objected, except that the entire Ohio Country was assigned to Quebec. Oops.

    Especially since big chunks of the Ohio Country had been assigned to various colonies in their original charters, and the Indian Reserve concept had already messed with their growth. Oops.

    (And that’s why the Declaration of Independence talks about “a neighbouring Province” and “enlarging its boundaries.”)

    The Quebec Act also said that Catholic Quebecois didn’t have to swear the Protestant bits of the oath of allegiance, freed up the Catholic Church in Quebec, and allowed tithing to the Catholic Church in Quebec. (Not so much in the rest of the American colonies or the UK.) This freaked out Protestant colonists.

    On the dark side, the Act also said that French civil law would be the common law for Quebec, which meant loss or change of freedoms for English colonists in Quebec. The Thirteen Colonies were also freaked out by this.

    On the bright side, the sudden religious freedom and other favorable provisions were intended to make the Quebecois happy and not rebellious-ish like the Thirteen Colonies, and this did seem to have worked.

    OTOH, the more liberty-minded bits of the Quebec Act apparently did influence people like George Washington to support the Bill of Rights (eventually) and religious freedom for all, including Jews and Catholics, as well as all the various non-Anglican Protestants. So it had its uses for the US also.

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  26. So anyway…. “In 1756, Maryland introduced a law that restricted Catholics from owning guns. The law ordered the confiscation of “all Arms Gunpowder and Ammunition of what kind soever any Papist or reputed Papist within this Providence hath or shall have in his House or Houses.”

    But you notice that, despite everything, Catholics in Maryland did have guns and other arms, which is why somebody wanted a law against it.

    “In 1715, Maryland prohibited slaves from “carry[ing] any guns, or any other offensive weapon, from off their master’s land, without license from their said master.” In 1742, Pennsylvania enacted a law that prohibited slaves in Philadelphia from carrying any weapons without the permission of their masters.”

    But apparently a lot of slaveowners were allowing their slaves to have weapons, including guns. (Unlike later in history, when slave gun use was more rare.)

    During the American Revolution, a fair number of Loyalists had their guns confiscated by Patriots, and vice versa.

    Some colonies restricted “unusual” weapons (although apparently people were still getting them), while some states required everybody’s household to own certain guns and ammunition. (Okay, it was Vermont.)

    American history is just all over the place, and always has been.

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  27. In the Japan one…

    Is that middle guy in the bottom row putting his hand up the skirt of what might be a girl right in the middle?

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    1. Well, akshully, no.

      No.

      So there are seven figures in this version of the comment.

      Outer four, are clockwise from top, Bandit Keith from Yu Gi Oh, I’m pretty sure Paul Phoenix from Tekkan, Guile from Street Fighter, and IIRC Senator Armstrong from one of the Metal Gear games.

      Leaves back middle, middle middle, and front middle. None of whom I can identify yet, though I did find a different image of middle middle, holding a d different gun, and a badge reading CIA.

      Anyway, middle middle does seem to be female, and the pose is actually straight forward to understand, if strange.

      It is a dynamic pose, between two moving states. She originally would have been moving down and to her left, coming from the direction of her right.

      Her left knee is bent beneath her, and her right leg is out straight. She is stopped now, but has just shifted. Left arm forward and down is for balancing that motion.

      She is clearly not to the same scales as any of the others. She may be wearing pants. There is cloth waving around, but it is pretty clearly a jacket or maybe a cloak.

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